72 | From the Rugby Pitch to the Boardroom: Building High-Performance Cultures | Stuart Lancaster

Welcome to the Building Better Cultures podcast, where I talk to leaders about how internal communications, engagement, and leadership all play a key role in creating amazing and successful cultures.

The people who are most successful in life are the people who have the emotional intelligence to get the best out of people, who can build good relationships, who've got empathy, who are self-aware. And I think the theory of leadership and how you get better at it is critical to be shared in any organization.

Hello there and welcome to this episode of the Building Better Cultures podcast with me, Scott McInnes. Before we get into today's guest, a quick thank you to Workvivo, our sponsor, as usual, for their very kind support of the show. It's really interesting that one of the things that I've seen come up over the past few months, particularly I think as we've seen the whole move towards more hybrid working and organizations thinking about where they'll go in the future and how their communications can support that, is the growth of internal podcasts. So obviously many of you listening to this have a whole raft of podcasts in your, in your podcast app, um, but internal podcasts are really becoming a thing now. So if you're thinking about doing something internally from a podcasting perspective, have a look at Workvivo, um, because it's plug and play outside of the box. And of course you get all the other functionality with it. So, um, well worth a look at workvivo.com. Interesting guest today, um, former England rugby coach and current Leinster coach. What really got me interested in Stuart Lancaster, who I'll be introducing you to shortly, was something that popped up on LinkedIn a few months back when he launched some online leadership masterclasses. And there was a particular line in the introduction that really got me thinking. And the line was this: Leadership isn't a straight upward path. It's always the rocky road. And sometimes it's those rocks that make us great. And I think that's absolutely true that we learn more often from our failures than we do from our successes. When you go on then to look at Stuart's LinkedIn, and, you know, yes, his whole background, his whole life has been around rugby. But actually, when you look at what people are recommending him for, it's coaching, it's leadership, and it's management. So I'm really pleased to have Stuart on the podcast today. We're going to talk a little bit about those three things, and a little bit, a little bit about his masterclasses and his experience. So Stuart, you're welcome. Very welcome on the podcast.

Thanks for the invite. Looking forward to it.

Yeah, should be a good discussion. Listen, let's kick off with a really easy one. Why don't you tell me a little bit about you, your background, where you've come from, and your role today?

Yeah. So very quickly then, I was born and bred on a farm, a dairy farm in West Cumbria, north of England, and spent my formative years very happily brought up in primary school and Went on to a little school called Langlothby, and then when I was 10, actually, I went to boarding school, which was quite a big step for a 10-year-old to go to a boarding school, which is on the right on the tip of Cumbria, a place called St. Bees near Whitehaven. And went there between 1980 to '88. Came— I left there having gravitated to leadership positions, had a rocky road at school as well, but I got my A-levels, ended up becoming the head of school and the captain of the rugby team, captain of the cricket team, cricket team. So, and I was really lucky that the head teacher at the time was very into empowering the pupils. So even though it was the late '80s, he was very much, um, giving me a lot of responsibility that probably— and the independence that has definitely stood me in good stead, um, today, that's for sure. Uh, anyway, then I went to university, um, I did a sports science degree that then was, um, followed on by a postgrad in PE teaching. And in '92, I began PE teaching at a school called Keltorp High School in Wakefield. So I did that for 8 years, and then when 2000 came along, I was playing rugby at the time. The game went professional, albeit I generally played as a semi-professional. I took a year out, actually a sabbatical, to go full-time for a year. But I got injured in 2000, and the role of the academy manager came up at the club I was at, which was very much a leadership and a management and coaching role. And so that was a great experience for me from in my early 30s. I've done my coaching qualifications as well. And then in 2005, the head coach of the club I was at resigned, and I got the job as head coach of a team that had been relegated from the Premiership into the Championship. And our job was to get promoted back into the Premiership, which we did at first attempt. And then I was coaching Leeds in the, in the Premiership. And then during that year, I got approached by the RFU to see if I'd join the governing body down at Twickenham. The job type was Head of Elite Player Development, so it was Head of Elite Player Development, and I was coaching England Saxons as well. So it was running all the academy systems in England and all the international age-grade teams, as well as coaching the England second team, so to speak. So I did that for 4 years. Again, very steep learning curve, lots of great experiences and memories. And then in 2011, Martin Johnson resigned as England head coach, and very, very similar to the Leeds situation, I got the interim job, um, made some changes, just more in terms of like bringing some younger players through, uh, applied for the job full-time and got appointed in April 2012. Um, did the England job for 4 years, um, and, uh, left the RFU after the World Cup in 2015. Obviously things didn't go to plan for for the team, um, and obviously for myself. So I paid the price on that one. Uh, and, uh, then there was a period of not working but, uh, going and visiting other clubs and sharing what I'd learned, waiting for the next opportunity to come up. And that came up, uh, in September 2016, uh, when I joined Leinster here in Dublin. And, uh, I've been here ever since. So this is my fifth— end of my fifth year now. We've won 4 Super— 4 Pro14 titles, European Cup, and we've been to the final of the European Cup. Very successful team with a strong identity and culture, and yeah, just signed another 2-year deal, so by the end of 2023, I'll have been here 7 years.

Brilliant, and I'm sure they love having you, and it has— you're right, it has been such a successful team with such a huge brand, and I live in Dublin as well, so I'm well aware of how big the Leinster team is here, and of course, if you're not in Dublin, the rival rivalries between Leinster and Munster are well known, but that's okay because that's what keeps competition going, right? Um, for any of you who are not rugby fans, do not panic, do not hang up, do not turn off. Today's conversation, as much as I'd love to talk about how much, um, we both agree, Stuart and I, that Stuart Hogg is the best fullback in world rugby, we're not going to do that. We are going to talk about leadership, we are going to talk about management, we're going to talk about culture and all those good things. So do not turn off, um, this is not going to be a rugby conversation, I promise. And in fact, let's kick that off because one of the things that you talk about on your website, Stuart, is high performance culture. And what I want to know is how do you know if you've got one or not?

Someone gave me a great quote on this. I think it probably encapsulates what I think a great culture is. It's, it's where good people want to come to your organization. The good people you have in your organization stay longer than they ordinarily would. And if they do leave for whatever reason to move on to a new role, they say, you know what, that was probably the best time of my career. And I think if I was to talk about Leinster and the environment I'm in, I never once thought I'd stay here for 5 years, but because it's such a good environment and I really enjoy it, I've— one, I wanted to come when they approached me even though I'd coached England at the time. Two, I've stayed probably longer than I would, and then if I do leave, whenever that might be, I'll definitely look back and say that was a brilliant, brilliant time of my career. So I think that's a good way to think about culture. There's 100 different ways as well, you know, you can talk about the way we do things around here, the unwritten rules, the values, the behaviours, the vision, the identity, you know, we could talk about it for a long time for sure.

And it's such a hard thing, I think it's such a hard thing for people and particularly senior leaders to get their nearly their heads around in terms of culture and the importance of it, because you can't really see it and you can't really measure it, can you?

It is very hard. I sometimes think environment's a better word.

Than culture?

Well, yeah, it just gives you a better mental picture of what a good culture looks like. It's quite abstract. A good environment, you're sort of thinking, I can see what an environment would look like, where people have got smiles on the faces when they come into work, that there's a genuine sense of inclusivity, there's a real sense of diversity in the environment, there's a psychological safety that people feel trusted and they can give their point of view without feeling that they're going to be shouted down, there's an energy, there's an intangible buzz around the place, there's a clear vision and direction, there's a clear reason why we're all working hard for the organization. All those things, you know, make up a successful environment, I think. So I think it sometimes helps to think of it in those terms as well as just purely a culture.

Yeah, interesting. And for me, the one that really pops out from the list you just gave there was that whole piece around psychological safety, about that being so, so important. As you said, you know, when you were in school, even coming through school, you know, and your teachers were very empowering, then that has to be a two-way street, 'cause it's all very well and good for them to say, well, Stuart, you're the captain of the rugby team or the cricket team, you make the calls. But actually that same teacher has to be open when you say, well, sir, I don't agree with X, and you had to feel comfortable with that. That's the same in the workplace as far as I'm concerned. If we talk about promoting a two-way culture, then that psychological safety needs to be there in order for people to feel as though they've got the space to have those conversations.

Definitely, definitely. And I think it's built, on relationships. It's built on mutual trust and respect. Um, you know, I often see relationships as an invisible cord between two people, and the thicker the cord, the stronger the relationship. Uh, and it has to be two-way, you know, where I give something to a relationship and you give something back in return. You know, there's a lot of examples— I've— environments I've worked in where, you know, I felt I've given something, I've not got much back in return as a consequence. I then give less to the relationship in the future, and then the trust begins to evaporate and we become work colleagues rather than people who are genuinely working together, you know, for the same output. And I think, you know, that sense of, you know, safety comes from the leadership really in the organization as well. So we operate in an environment where we review performance every week. We play on a Saturday, we meet on a Monday, and we review performance. And sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. And in the room there is everyone from the most senior international who's played for the British and Irish Lions, who's been capped by Ireland 100 times, to an academy player who's 19 who's never even played for Leinster. And we're all sat in the same room, and part of the skill of creating a successful environment where people feel safe to give their point of view is that the 19-year-old feels as empowered and as respected, that they can give their point of view and their opinion is valued, rather than some sort of hierarchy where you've got to earn the right to speak because you've sat there for like 4 or 5 years. And I'm very big on that because I think it's really important that we have this diversity of opinion that comes from the most senior player, or in a rugby example, you know, the academy player, which is the same as in a high-performing business organization where you want ultimately the people at the top of the organization to hear the voices and to gather the feedback from the people who are perhaps newest to the organization. But it's that psychological safety that's driven by the leadership, because if they shout down the person that speaks, the younger person speaks, or they belittle them, or they mock them, or they bully them, or they don't value their opinion, That's not a safe environment people can give their— it's an environment where people are very guarded and then don't say what they think all the time.

And it's so easy to poo-poo that feedback or input from somebody who's 19 because sure, what do you know? Whether it's in a work team or in a sports team, what do you know? And actually what they know is something different to perhaps the way that the people, as you said, have been sitting there for 4 or 5 years just a completely different perspective, looking at something from a completely different and fresh angle because they're perhaps not bringing the baggage of history or what's gone before or this is the way we do things around here. And that's so important. And of course, I presume from then, from a leader's perspective, from your perspective as a coach in that team or from a manager perspective in a kind of a corporate setting, that it's about the leader saying, well, hang on a minute, it's important that we hear all the voices in the room. Isn't it?

Yeah, exactly, exactly. But it's equally important that, um, uh, the people, the younger people in the team feel confident to come in, give their point of view, but they must have a point of view in the first place. And so what we've worked really hard at is growing the leadership of our youngest players. Um, and, um, one of the things I always say to the youngest players is don't come into the meeting without a point of view. Um, and I'm trying to grow them as leaders and not wait wait until they're 30 years old to become leaders. You know, I think we can sometimes wait for experience to grow leadership, and one thing I believe in is that we can— leadership is a skill that can be learned, and if we put deliberate attention on it and we can help guide the people in the organization to become better leaders, you'll have a better product at the end of it. I'm absolutely certain. So one of the things that we do to create that, um, that sense of leadership growth is to really invest in our young people. And because the model at Leinster is the homegrown— it's a homegrown squad, so we can't buy in. We've got, you know, we maybe got one or two players that come from outside the, um, the area that, that we represent, the province of Leinster. But generally we have to grow our own talent, um, and it's— that's like equivalent in a workplace where you can't bring— you can't go and recruit and headhunt the next best people in your management structure. You've got to grow from within. And when you've got that model, it's absolutely imperative that you grow leadership within your own organization. And I would say it's true anyway, to be honest. And I think that's one of the points of difference I think we have as a club, that we promote from within, we grow leadership from within, and we create that environment where everyone has a has the right to have a point of view, but also generates a point of view as well.

Yeah, brilliant. And of course, you have your formal leaders with the formal labels, but it's sometimes those informal leaders, and people might not even realize that either that informal leader is doing that role, or the other people in the team, they don't realize that that person's doing that role, because just doing it very quietly, and they're being that go-to person for particular things. But I guess for you, as a coach or for a manager in a business, it's to be able to spot that happening, and to be able to shape that Yeah, I mean, the sport of rugby means that we can't rely on one person to make all the decisions.

It's just not the way the sport operates, you know. You need a line-out call, you need a fly-half, you need a captain, you need a defensive leader. You've got players who aren't getting picked who are in the leadership group, and everyone has to have a voice and everyone has to bring something to the team. And I think the more we can grow leadership within the team, the more we get that pop-up leadership that you've just described. But if people aren't confident in terms of their own self-awareness, their own personality, their own leadership strengths, um, the environment isn't safe for them to deliver the messages, then what happens is people become very, very quiet in meetings and they don't say what they think. And the more dominant personalities begin to drive the organization on their own, which ultimately self-defeating because you never get that variety of point of views that are critical in a high-performing team.

Yeah, and if those more dominant personalities are let loose, then actually everyone— I find certainly my experience that the other people, those younger leaders tend to— yeah, completely.

Yeah, and if the dominant leaders aren't necessarily the best leaders, which sounds, you know, it's often the way, you know, so the most senior people in the team— I've been in a few teams where Yes, they are the most experienced and they're the oldest, but they're not necessarily the best leaders. They're not necessarily the ones who live the values the best. They're not the ones who do what they say they're going to do all the time. And they can often drag people in the wrong direction, you know. So it's a very, very fine art to get that leadership model the way you want it, where you've got this real spread of leadership growth and promotion from within. But if you can get it right, then I think it'll take you to a place that you probably wouldn't get to any other way. Hi, I'm Cliona from Workvivo. When working away from the office, it's easy for your people to feel isolated and disconnected from your culture and each other. That's where we come in with our quick-to-deploy employee communications platform. It's all about ensuring that your people feel informed, engaged, and connected to your company culture, values, goals, and each other wherever they work from. For more, See workvivo.com.

If you transfer that thinking over to a corporate environment, and I've often said that leaders in the corporate world tend to get into people leadership positions, not because they're good people leaders, but because they're senior. Because as you said, they've been around for a long time. They've been in the role for ages. They've now got to a point in their career where somebody says, well, you've now gotten to be a senior engineer, risk person, HR person, IT person, whatever it might be. But you've now gotten to that point where you're so senior, you now need to have a team. They're not team leaders, they're not people people. They get put into the role and they're not actually very good at it. And that to me is extremely destructive. How do you fix that?

Yeah, I mean, it happens all the time, doesn't it? I mean, it happens in teaching. You know, where you stay around the department long enough, you become the head of the department. Then you become a deputy head or assistant head teacher. Then you become a head teacher, you know, before you know it. And you've not really been equipped with the skills to lead and manage. And you actually stop doing what you're good at in the first place, which is probably teaching. So people have got to understand the difference between teaching— let's talk about teaching or coaching, we can call it, for me, my language— or if you're working in a business, whatever your core skill is in your role, coaching, leadership, management, and then leadership. And people need to understand the difference between the three. You're doing your day job is one thing. Managing a team of 4 people, 5 people, 10 people is a different skill altogether. And then leading a team of 4, 5, 10, 15, 50, 100 is a different skill again. And one thing that I've emphasized on my course, but also just in that I've learned, is you need to begin to learn the skills for all three., and when we appoint people in roles, we need to be assessing not just their technical competency, we need to be assessing their ability to lead and manage people well, and you promote on that basis. You don't promote on the basis of age or about the fact they've been in the environment the longest, you know. There could equally be someone who's better equipped to become a better leader, who's shown better ability in the technical part of the role better management skills and the ability to manage a group of people who are organized, who are detail-oriented, who can plan in the short, medium, and long term, who can manage a large group of relationships, who can keep all the plates spinning at the same time, as well as their own job, as well as their family, and what is their own home life and everything else. And then you've got this other group of people who then, um, who are the inspirational people in the organization, who set the vision, who've got the clarity about where they're going as a team and can see the bigger picture. And I think that we often, as you say, tend to promote on longevity, not on those skills.

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the longest, you know, the longest in there gets the big job, which is just nonsensical to me. But all that is very well and good in theory, but in practice, It's the really brave organization that says, actually, you know what, Jim, you know, I know you've been here for 20 years and you were expecting to get the job, but actually Sarah, who's 20 years younger than you, is much better and much more fit and able to do the role of leadership that we need done. She's going to get the job. It takes a brave organization to do that. It's totally the right thing to do, but it takes a really brave organization to make that decision.

Yeah, yeah, it does. It does. But also it's not just bravery, it's having a process and a proper way of assessing people's ability and then understanding what the role that you're created and suit to, um, putting the skill set to suit the role. Um, and I think, you know, if I go back to my— I mean, you could argue the RFU did that in my case. You know, I was 41 years old, I'd left teaching 10 years previously, and suddenly I'm coaching England. Um, and the RFU, you know, at that point decided they wanted this type of leader, this type of coach. They wanted someone from within. There was a proper process. There were more senior coaches than me interviewed, and it was thorough. I mean, it happened I was actually getting interviewed while I was doing the job at the time in the interim role, so it felt like I was doing the on-the-job interview anyway. But, um, that does help, doesn't it? Yeah, well, it does. It goes well. It doesn't if it doesn't go well. Fortunately, it did go well. Um, but You know, I think when I've had to appoint people and make decisions on, shall I go with this person, this person, this person, I put a lot of time and effort into the process, understanding what's the role, what am I looking for, what do I want from this person, what are the key competencies? And I interview on that basis and make the interview really, really thorough so I can understand what the skillset of the people who I'm trying to appoint is and and then trusting my instincts on the back of the process to appoint the right one. And age, experience, everything else has a part to play, but it's not the defining factor.

Not the be-all and end-all. No, absolutely. And I think many organizations don't think enough about, you know, when somebody leaves, they think, well, who do we need to hire to fill that spot? And actually, I always look at it and think, well, actually, no, it's not who do you need to fill that spot? It's who do you need to fill the spot in 12 or 18 or 24 months' time and then work back from there. Because no point having the same person as you had before. You perhaps need somebody that is different, that does do things differently in order to bring you further on the journey.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we often rush the process.

Yeah.

And I think we're under time pressure because everyone's busy doing the day job. And but actually it's the most important thing you're ever going to do in your organisation, surely. It's who you bring into the organisation, who you develop through the organisation. And who you promote from within the organization.

Yeah, yeah.

Or outside.

Yeah, for sure. And bringing in great talent as well is key. On the website, you talk a lot about authentic leadership, and I find that authenticity and authentic leadership is thrown around, and I'm sure you hear all the time as well, it's thrown around an awful lot these days as being one of those things that we just expect leaders to have authenticity and vulnerability is the one that sits like a happy bedfellow with that. Why is that important? Why is authenticity important in a leader, do you think?

I just think people can see if you're not being who you are, who you truly are. The temptation is to mirror someone else's leadership style because you've seen them be successful. And I think it works for a while, but generally, if you're working in an environment like rugby, like say if we've got 30-odd games a year plus a preseason as well, and I'm stood in the players presenting to them on this is the next training session, this is the review of that performance, this is the preview of the team we're going to play against. So I'm stood in front of them 4, 5, 6, 7 times a week presenting to them on different elements of, um, the team's development. They can spot very, very quickly if I'm being authentic or not, if I'm being the true Stuart Lancaster. If I'm trying to be humorous when really actually it's not my forte to like be the comedian. Or if I'm trying to become José Mourinho or a different autocratic leader and call people out and generally be dictators— dictator, like a dictator.

I was going to say horrible.

Yeah, dictator. I just they'd see through it. So I think you have to have the confidence to be yourself. The first thing is obviously to understand yourself. I wouldn't recommend anyone going into a leadership position if you haven't really understood what makes you, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are, what makes yourself tick, what are the areas of growth, where you put people around you to help you with your, maybe your blind spots. So I think once you've done that bit, I do think being yourself is key because people will respect you for— if you are humble and hardworking and respectful and courageous sometimes, if you're a good communicator, they don't mind really who you are, but they just want to see the authentic you, the real you. And sometimes— I remember I got some feedback once. I did a leadership analysis, my analysis of my leadership styles,. And it was 6 different styles, and I ranked myself and gave myself a score on how I thought on each of these 6 styles. And the players did as well, and then the management and the physios and everyone else who's in the organization. And I remember one of the comments at the end was, I wish Stuart sometimes would show more ranges of emotion. Show us when he's happy with us and show us when he's not, you know, because I was— I'm quite even-keeled. Um, and I thought that was a really good way of, um, improving myself as a person, you know, and showing the real me. I think sometimes, say, like the England job, it's such a high-pressure job, and you know, you know there's adversity potentially coming around every corner, and you've got difficult selection conversations to have, and a game that you might lose, and the media pressure is going to come. It's very easy to be very guarded in what you give because you feel like, if I give too much here, I'm going to get burnt at the end of it. And I think it's a really fine balance there of how you show who you are without giving everything, you know. And I'm definitely better at that in this role, and I'd like to think if I went back into a, you know, a national coaching job again, I'd be better again next time around.

Yeah, I like that. That feedback from the 360 was wonderful, and I think often people don't see feedback as a gift. They see it as a kick in the teeth. And I'm looking at it going, but people are telling you how to make yourself better. How can that not be a gift?

Yeah, that's the growth mindset piece, Scott McInnes. It's the ability to want to get better every day. It's the ability to want to never feel you've reached the summit. It's— I meet so many leaders who, whenever I meet them, they tell you what they think, but they never ask you what you think. I think the first question you should do when you meet someone is, 'What do you think? What do you think about the way we're playing?' or 'What do you think about the environment here?' or 'What would you do in this situation if it was you?' or 'Have you read any good books lately?' or 'Have you, you know, tell me something that went well at work or what didn't go well?' You know, just being curious and want to know how people tick as opposed to telling people all the time. And I do think there's such a big difference in that ability to want to get feedback to improve is all part of the people who just want to keep getting better. If you dislike feedback, then I think it's limiting.

Yeah, I mean, you're never going to grow. It's very hard to grow if you live, if you put yourself into a vacuum, and you're not able to either get or take on board that feedback. It's so, so critical. So critical. At Inspiring Change, we help our clients to implement sustainable change and drive business performance by putting their people first. We do that through a focus on strategic internal communications, employee engagement, and leadership consultancy. If you're struggling with change or getting your people aligned behind your purpose, vision, or strategy, then get in touch. Simply visit our website at www.inspiringchange.ie for more. We spent a lot of time, we've spent Nearly half an hour now talking about leaders. And I always think, and the line I use often is, you know, leaders are like the glue between teams and the organization. They're the ones that can take a corporate vision, take corporate objectives, take corporate purpose, translate that in a way that their teams can understand and get on board with. And I do see those people leaders as being fundamentally important in organizations, some of the most important people actually in organizations. But I just wonder, you know, we put a lot of pressure on them. And to the discussion we had earlier, they've got a day job, they've got the leadership job, which to my mind should be their day job. But look, it's not how it seems to work in many organizations. We put a lot of pressure on them. But I just wonder, surely to create a high-performance culture, there's a role for everybody in an organization, from the CEO all the way down to the most junior person in that organization.

Yeah, exactly. What do you mean, to be a leader? A role for everyone to be a leader? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, definitely, 100%. I mean, I think that, um, I, I, I gravitated to leadership positions, um, as I said, when I was at school. I went to university, you know, went to a little fish in a big pond again, um, went to a teaching job, you know, young teacher in a senior school, worked my way up into a leadership, uh, position when I was 30. And went on a course, a Level 5 coaching course, which was actually held at Ashridge Business School. I was 31 at the time. And it was less about rugby, it was all about leadership and management. And all the intuitive leadership skills that I was applying in those phases of my life to this point, it gave me the theory behind the practice. And it really opened my eyes to how much you could really improve if you studied leadership and you worked hard to become a better leader. And I guess my looking back now, my biggest regret is why didn't— I wish I could have done that when I was 21, not 31. And if you've got that mindset where you want to grow leadership within your department, your organization, your environment, um, you need to get on and do it because it will pay off in absolute spades at the end of the day. Because what we often do is we wait for young people to gain leadership experience by just, um, letting them make mistakes and picking them up when they don't and trying to educate them. And, and suddenly, you know, it's 35 years old. Why wait till they're 35 to grow their leadership? I just don't— it doesn't make any sense to me. You know, we want to grow leadership and as many people as possible at a young age as possible. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd have an emotional intelligence, communication, and leadership A-level for people at school, leaving school. Because we go to university or we go into apprenticeships or go into jobs thinking it's all based on our A-levels or academic qualifications. The people most successful in life are the people who have the emotional intelligence to get the best out of people, who can build good relationships, who've got empathy, who are self-aware.. And these are skills that often you can't— you don't get taught at school. And I think the theory of leadership and how you get better at it is critical to be shared in any organization.

Yeah, I think it was Jack Ma, who started Alibaba, who had a big go at the G7 a few years ago, the G8, where he was saying that we just— we have a broken education system. We're teaching our kids the wrong things. And exactly to that point, we need to be teaching them empathy and leadership and how to be decent human beings and not necessarily how to be good at geography or maths or the 3 things that you do in your A-levels.

It's insane.

Yeah, for sure. Very quickly, one of the things that we talked about there earlier on was vision. And I kind of sit purpose and vision kind of alongside each other. If vision is where we're going, our purpose is why we're doing it. And for me, that shared goal is really important to having high-performance cultures, having a really clear goal of where we're going, which I think is probably easier in sport than it is in business because sport is about passion and business is often not about passion. I worked in a bank for a number of years and it's hard to get passionate about current accounts and mortgages. So, I just wonder, how can leaders bring their teams on a journey, on a vision, on a visionary journey when they're in a role like that or an organization like that? What are some of the things they can do to really bring that to life?

I think that's the skill, isn't it? That's the art of leadership. You know, it's finding a way to find the reason why we're all going to work hard for this department, this organisation. And, you know, I know, I understand what you're saying, but I'd find a way. I'd find a way. I'd think of whether it be a competitive way to want to create the best mortgage department within the banking structure. To create an environment where everyone felt included and that we had this clear goal about what we wanted to achieve. I would also layer in the importance of why we'd be proud of the culture that we're going to build together, how strong we can make our identity, and I think would be really something we could drive towards. A higher purpose as well, something that involved maybe community Action, something beyond just get as many mortgages sold as possible. So something beyond winning, you know, something beyond winning within the job. I think I would talk about we can make this the most empowered environment, you know, within the banking structure where it's a generally collaborative effort, how we can all be on the same page, we can We're gonna have this sense of teamwork. And ultimately, if I was speaking to my mortgage people in the bank, I'd say, and I want you guys to lead it. I'm just going to create the vision, but I want you guys to drive it. And you're going to own it. And I want you to live it. And we want to be, we want to talk about these things. So I think, you know, it's down to you to, as the leader, to bring it to life for them. The easy thing to do is to go from day to day, week to week, month to month, doing the day job. Doing the admin, doing the logistics, doing the managerial stuff, not doing the leadership stuff. I remember in teaching, if I give you an analogy of teaching, we have what's called inset days, teacher training days before the kids, pupils come back, the day before. And every time we sat there, and I always sit there and think, please can we talk about why we all became teachers? Please can we talk about where we're going to take this school? Please can we talk about how we're going to make a difference to the community and how we're going to change people's lives and set them on the right path towards you know, a successful life post-16. It was 11 to 16 comprehensive. You know what we never did? We never did, because we talked about the next Ofsted inspection or the assessment form that we had to fill in or the logistics of setting up the school to go into. And we had a brilliant school, don't get me wrong, but I was desperate for that. And this is me as a 22-year-old teacher, and I've got 62-year-old teachers in the same staff room. And we just needed, and I think it happens in many organisations, we just needed pulling together and we just needed to spend a little bit of time every so often about our purpose, our vision, as you've said. But how that gets articulated and how you create that, that's down to leaders. And that's the gift of leadership.

Yeah. And to build on that story, for me, it's about how do you bring people into the equation? Exactly that point. How do you see the higher purpose? How do you see beyond selling mortgages? And actually, it was funny when I was at at the bank, the new head of mortgages came in and he said, "We have to stop talking about the fact that we sell mortgages, and we have to start talking about the fact that we help people to buy homes." And you go, "Oh yeah." So it's that that's going to keep somebody—

Exactly.

Maybe 5 minutes later when they're walking out the door, because it's people. I remember a client I work with here who make, they're a plastics manufacturer, and somebody's job might be to lift pieces off the end of a production machine, a production line, and put them in a box for 8 hours.. And that's their job. And it's a job that needs to get done. And I said to them, but one of the things that you make is a defib machine. And anybody watching the Denmark game the other night, that was what saved his life, was a defib machine on the side of the pitch. And I said, so you're not pulling bits of plastic off the end of a production line, you're potentially down the line saving somebody's life. And that's huge, huge. And that's the role of the leader, to bring that to life for the people in the organization.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the classic where you've got the guy sweeping up the— they land on the moon for the first time and they ask him, what's he doing? He says, I'm helping put the man on the moon.

Yeah. Brilliant. All the way down. But that has to— but that red thread has to be there all the way down through the organization from top to bottom and side to side. If you really want to get people bought in and create that high performance culture, right?

Yeah, exactly. But that takes time. It takes effort. It takes energy. You know, I remember with England, you know, you could argue the whole job was just to get the team connected, but, you know, I saw the team, the age-grade teams, the women's team, the people who worked in the ticket office, the community rugby coaches, the rugby development officers, the HR department, the IT department. You know, I saw that as my job as a national coach, to connect all those people together for one purpose: we're England Connected. And extend that connection out to grassroots rugby, to the mums and dads who take their kids down on a Sunday morning, to the kids themselves who want to aspire to be the next England player, you know, that— but that takes, you know, selling the vision again, again, again, again to different stakeholders and to different people, and it's draining. But ultimately, that's— if you don't want to do that, then don't be the leader, you know, be the manager.

Well, that's your job. That's your job.

But, you know, that's the difference between management and leadership. Management is— and nothing wrong with being a manager, obviously, and it's great that we've got brilliant managers, but the leader is the one who decides, I'm going to make a difference here, I'm going to paint a vision, and I'm going to describe it in colorful detail. And I think that's the real key, is painting a picture that they can see in the future so they've got a roadmap to navigate towards.

Yeah, for everybody, for the person that makes the tea, for the person that packs the lunches, for the guy that carries the water bottles, for the guy that carries the balls, for everybody. Up to the 15 people that run out on that pitch on an international afternoon in Twickenham, in your case. It's as important for everybody in that chain of command.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Conscious of time, Stuart, last question. You talk a lot about inspiring leaders, and as somebody that runs a company called Inspiring Change, that's something that's very fundamental to my core as well and what we do for our clients. Why do you think being inspiring is so important, and how How does a leader go about doing that? There's somebody sitting listening to this going, God, I wish I was inspiring like Stuart Lancaster. How do they make that happen?

Yeah, I think it's critical to have inspiring leaders in society personally. I think, you know, it's such a complex world we live in at the moment. You know, I'm not just talking about COVID I'm talking about, I've got two young kids who are 20 and 21 now who've just been the sort of, The teenagers went through the digital revolution and the social media age and some of the challenges that young people are facing, it's only going to get more challenging, um, obviously the COVID and everything else that comes with it. So I think it's a really challenging time at the moment, um, mental health challenges for people who've been out of work or— so we need inspiring leadership, we need people who are going to make a difference, we need people who can give us a sense of optimism about the future, people that we would willingly follow not because we're paid to, but because we want to, because we can see that. So I think it's absolutely critical, number one. In terms of how do you do it, I think I won't describe myself necessarily as inspiring, but I do think I can have moments of inspiration. So I don't think you need to be, you feel like you need to be inspiring all the time. I think what you need to do is you need to have inspiring moments. And you do that by shutting your computer down, turning your phone off and start daydreaming and start thinking about what is it you want to do and how is it you want to make a difference and get creative with your thought process about how you can, well, think about A, what is the vision you want to create and B, how can you bring that vision to life? And then how can you describe it in graphic detail? And again, you don't need to be a great orator to do this, but you just need to be authentic and you need to be able to capture people in their hearts. And it's about how you communicate, it's your body language, it's the words that you use, the passion. They can see it inside you. But it takes creativity, it takes some— it takes creating a vision, you know. You don't just come up with a corporate word and go on an away day and say, right, we're all on a journey now to this destination, you know. It— it's more sincere than that. It's more from the heart. But you've got to find ways to get what's in your heart out. And I think if people do that, then no matter how you do it, people will follow you.

Yeah. And you know what? Lots of exec teams, I think, still go off on away days, pick a corporate buzzword, bring it back to the office and say, this is what we're going after now. And that's why it doesn't work.

Exactly. People can see that, people can see both through it because they'll all, if it's a good environment, they'll all try and make it work. But you want hearts and minds, don't you? You engage hearts and minds. And that's what you got to think about when you're creating a vision and when you want to inspire people.

Yeah, absolutely. Listen, Stuart, we're going to wrap up now. Thanks so much for your time. It's been a pleasure having you on. But before we go, tell me a little bit about your leadership masterclasses and where people can go to find out more about them? Because it's something that having watched a few of them, you've put a lot of effort into.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it goes back to my teaching, teaching time, my mindset on teaching is that I want to share what I've learned. So I spent, as I said to you, you know, I went on that course, which opened the door to 101 books that I've read, I've made notes on. Obviously, I've had my own personal experiences in leadership positions. So what I wanted to do was pull all that together into an online course that I could share what I've learned, essentially. So if you wanted the distilled version or the hybrid version of all the study and work that I've done, then do the course and it will save you hours and hours of work that I did to put it together. But the course itself is, it's in bite-sized modules, so like 15 minutes each. You go online, you sign up for the course. And in your own time, you just work your way through, probably takes, if you wanted to go from start to finish without stopping, probably take you 2.5 hours, 3 hours. All my bonus material comes at the end, which is books I've read and notes I've made. And so things like that come at the end. But it's essentially, yeah, it's 6 modules, 15 minutes 10-15 minute chat on each subject area, maybe 4 or 5 subject areas within each module. And it's stuartlancaster.com. And you can just go online and sign up. And if not, and that's not for you, then even just connect on LinkedIn, because, you know, I think I've got 17,500 connections now, which is amazing. And I'll regularly put little bits and pieces on LinkedIn, which people find interesting, and I think that I find that equally rewarding.

Yeah, and they are good little tidbits that you put out there, including the other day your interview on Off the Ball where you were discussing the Lions tour coming up and the squad.

Yeah, that was, that was rugby related, to be fair, but there's a lot more non-rugby related. But that, if there are rugby people listening, then if you do want to have an insight into my thoughts on who's who's gonna win the series, then have a listen.

Absolutely. Stuart, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on. It's been great talking to you.

No problem. Thanks for having me.

Thanks for listening. To hear from other leaders in our podcasts, to read our blogs, or to find out more about the work that we do at Inspiring Change, please visit inspiringchange.ie.